Tunnel of Light
by sphere213
Summary: I am a nobody, yet upon my shoulders I bear the burden of prophecy. I live in the shadows of confusion and don't know where I am going, yet. One night I summon a demon to protect myself from Voldemort in a one sided duel. My demon wants to eat my soul.
1. Chapter 1

"There is no hope, no fear."

"Live in the moment, die in the moment."

"No will to power, no power to live."

* * *

Chapter One

I was nobody, yet upon my shoulders I bore the burden of prophecy.

"It is not important who you are, Harry," Dumbledore said. We sat in his well lit office, discussing life over a cup of strong tea. "But what you do, and what you do comes not from the mind, but from the heart."

"That's all well and fine for you to say," I said, "But the fact is, I'm not particularly talented. How the fuck am I going to defeat Voldemort?" I sighed, and thrust my head in my hands.

"Language, Harry," Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eye. Dumbledore looked better today. Voldemort regained his body six years ago, immediately starting a war we were too complacent to manage. Dumbledore led the fight through lean and hard years. His body shrank with every death blasted on the front pages of the Daily Prophet. The flesh melted off his face like butter on a hot pan, and his insomnia showed: his sunken and baggy eyes bespoke a great weariness.

The thought of Dumbledore getting too old to fight scared the hell out of me. I pretended it didn't affect me, but Dumbledore saw through my emotional disguise. "More tea?" He asked gently.

"Yes, please," I said, holding my cup aloft. He poured, but his eyes dissected me the way doctors in training cut up bodies. I saw it on the telly when I used to live with the Dursleys. "So, how's the new year moving along? Have you got a teacher for DADA yet?" I asked, breaking the silence, snapping the tension like cutting a taut piece of ribbon with a pair of scissors.

"I have someone in mind," Dumbledore said. "Though I think we have more important things to discuss than a teaching position, wouldn't you agree?" He put the tea pot on the desk and stood up, walked to the window.

"No, not really, I think education's really important, you know, for the kids." I sipped the bitter tea and sat back. "You wouldn't happen to have a few lemon drops, would you?"

Dumbledore readily brought out a bag of his favorite candy, handed me three of them. Hurriedly unwrapping the lemon drops, I stuffed all three into my mouth and sat back, enjoyed the sour sensation on my tastebuds to drive off the aftertaste of over boiled tea.

"Harry, Harry," Dumbledore said, shaking his head, "Are you high?"

I jerked in my seat, shocked. I spat the lemon drops into the tea cup. "W-what? How can you possibly tell?"

"I not only smell the smoke, Harry, but I also watched you clip the buds off Professor Sprout's plants in the greenhouse." Dumbledore gave me a most disapproving look. I would have shrunk to my seat but the weed had blunted me and I could feel a cold starky amusement at my situation from the back of my mind.

"Hmm, well you caught me, I guess," I shrugged. "It helps me sleep."

"Does it help with the dreams?" Dumbledore said, sitting back down in his chair.

I looked at Dumbledore, hard. "No," I said flatly. I was unwilling to discuss my visions. Voldemort took every opportunity to oppress my sleep with disturbing nightmares. I had learnt the hard way not to trust these dreams. Dumbledore understood my reluctance and we talked about nothing in particular, like two old friends catching up, until eventually he told me a story about his youth. I lived for those stories.

"When I was seventeen, My friend Gel and I-" (pronounced with a hard G sound like gangster or golden) "-once sneaked into a brothel. We had no money to pay, you see, and we wanted to amuse ourselves. The night was cold and there truly was nobody on the street except for a few hags and homeless men roaming for change. I told Gel we shouldn't do this, we would get caught -because this is a wizarding brothel, with a lot better guards - but he wouldn't listen. We crawled through the side window into a tiny closet filled with brooms and wash rags. Opening the door we met face to face with the most beautiful woman in the brothel, Madame Emilia." He leaned back and slowly unwrapped a lemon drop. I was on the edge of my seat in anticipation.

"Yes, go on," I said with a laugh. The high was coming on strong. I felt as happy as a ten year old flying a kite.

A sober look invaded Dumbledore's silent laughter. He peered at his desk keenly, as if listening for something. He tapped his wand on a chocolate frog card with a picture of himself plastered on it. "Kingsley, are you alright?" He asked, eyes wide with anxiety. "I heard the alarm." The portrait dissolved into Kingsley Shacklebolt's terrified face.

"Voldemort led a raid on our base of operations," Kingsley reported with forced calm. "I escaped. I was the only one."

I felt cold. My mind urged me to escape while my legs were two heavy boulders. Kingsley's face was covered in blood.

"What's your position?" Dumbledore said, "I'll come-"

"No, not necessary," Kingsley said, "I'll be at Hogwarts in ten minutes."

I hurriedly left without saying a word. War was not my forte.

That night I smoked three bowls behind Hagrid's hut. My pipe was a native american piece of art, auctioned at three hundred pounds. I was drawn to the intricate carvings of dragons, etched with utmost care into the glazed wood. Each hit I took burned my lungs. I coughed plegm and spat on the ground. The marijuana intoxicated me fully now. I ventured into locked vaults held in the basement of my mind. Memories surfaced: of the zoo where I first talked to a snake, of all the magical incidents of my childhood, of the time I turned my teacher's hair blue.

I slept in a bed that was foreign to me. I could smell the difference. My bed back home had a pine scent. This one smelled like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Sleep came to me like a snail covering a vast distance, taking me by surprise. I fell into a tunnel of light, a place I knew intimately. It was the bridge that connected my mind to Voldemort's, the twilight zone where we could interact with each other at a level that transversed mind, body, soul.

I felt his presence like the pungent aroma of death upon an icy breeze.

Voldemort took control of the mindscape. My struggle was futile.

My memories and thoughts laid bare: drinking tea with Dumbledore, saying goodbye to my girlfriend, Becky. The pieces of my consciousness floated to my awareness as I witnessed the fight between my spirit and his spirit. I watched a feverish haze enter me, a black poison seeping into my bloodstream. How could I fight this? Pure misery asaulted the fortress of my mind.

"Your weakness repulses me," a hiss rose up within my skull, a slow upward journey like the spiralling upward movement of cigarrete smoke. "You hang on to life by using others to shield away from your only fate."

"I am the Prophecy's chosen," I answered back, thinking of the articles written about me in the Daily Prophet. My heart felt he was right, I was a boy with a mark on his forehead, not especially significant in the wide scheme of things.

"It is not what you are but what you do…" Dumbledore's voice, an echo, filtered through the haze. The wisp of memory seemed saturated with a blinding white light. I rolled and struggled, but the dream held me in its grasp and although I could smell peanut butter and jelly I was still a caged animal.

Voldemort recoiled, as if burned, "Dumbledore poisons you against reality, Harry," he said seductively, his voice a mesmerizing hiss. I drowned in the voice. Hypnotic words pressed against my brain, compelling me to accept them. I resisted, barely. "He is an old man, and failing in life, he wishes to impart upon you his weaknesses. But I can give you something different."

I waited, listened. "We are two of a kind, Harry..." His voice faded away, and the scarlet glow of the tunnel faded also.

There was nothing further. I woke up to a hideous looking woman pouring herself over me.

"Awake, Mr. Potter?" Madame Pomfrey said, handing me a glass of green liquid. The steam rising from the potion stung my eyes and face. Putting the potion aside next to the bed lamp, I sat up and surveyed the Hospital Wing. Beds lined the hall in neat rows, their sheets pristine white. The walls were painted a dull greenish blue, and the aroma of sanitary disinfectent made me nauseous.

"Sleepy," I murmured, "Where-" I caught sight of my glasses.

"You're in the Hospital wing," she said, "You were screaming. A house elf found you bleeding from your scar, so the Headmaster decided you should have a brief stay here." She put a strong emphasis on the word brief, dragging it out. I knew she would want me to stay for at least a week or two, confined to a bed. She handed me the potion.

"What the hell is this?" I asked, curling my lips at taste.

"Just drink, boy," Madame Pomfrey said, practically snarling as she hurriedly lifted up the covers, thrust it to my shoulders, laying me back down on the bed after I gulped the potion in three mouthfuls. Then, walking briskly to the bed beside me, she knelt, flicked her wand and muttered a diagnostic charm at a body.

I craned my neck, getting a brief glimpse at the face before she pulled the curtain to block my view. Kingsley didn't look too good. He had cuts across his cheeks that still bled and his eyes were puffy and blackish.

I turned away from him and closed my eyes, letting the glass fall to the tiles with a clamor. Madam Pomfrey didn't notice. My heart thudded beneath my chest. I wanted to crawl out of my skin.

Because I knew it was my fault.

I wasn't strong enough to stop Voldemort. Others fought my battle, paid for my weakness.

The tunnel of light found me again. I walked along a road, empty and endless, that morphed into a stream of golden rays that gently held me up, carried me across the tunnel, and at the end of the tunnel I saw Voldemort's scarlet eyes gleaming down at me from beyond the mountains that lined the horizon. This is a dream, I told myself, wondering I should wake up since I knew it was a dream. But I didn't wake up. I was stuck here until someone shook me awake or Voldemort let go of me.

I could try occlumency. I counted one, two, three, as I tried to nudge my mind into stillness. Clear your head, Harry, clear your mind!

My dream world dissolved into black mist. I woke up.

The early morning light roused me. I felt refreshed. Deciding to take a walk down the halls of Hogwarts, perhaps eat something, I grabbed my wand off the bedside table along with my glasses. Blurry vision turned crispy clear.

There's something special about Hogwarts in the early morning, the way the dawn light seemsed to brighten up the portraits and wake up the metal suits of body armor. Life teemed in the morning, arising out of a natural slumber. Twitterings of avian creatures grew in a symphony as diverse species called out to the sky, the sun, their mates, their enemies. The Forbidden Forest unfurled into wakefulness.

I felt at home in Hogwarts. The walk exercised my tired body, smoothened the anxieties of the previous night. I came across a parapet overlooking the lake. Standing there, I got bored and reached in my robe pocket for my pack of cigarettes. Surprised that Madame Pomfrey had not searched and confiscated this item (she was probably too busy fixing up Kingsley, the poor auror), I took it out and gazed at the carton with longing. I promised Becky I would quit today. I licked my dry upper lip. The early morning was too rich to pass up the experience of a few drags. My whole body craved nicotine. I was a junkie, and I could admit it freely. I doubted I would die of cancer anyways. The war was too real, too close for that kind of thinking.

"Beautiful, is it not, Harry?" said a deep voice behind me. I turned, slowly, the identity of the person already known to me.

"I suppose so, sir," I said to Professor Slughorn. He was a fat man who resembled a walrus. "Do you remember the time I won the Felix Felicis potion during our first class together?"

I took out two cigarretes and handed my old Potions professor one, which he accepted with a look of amusement. Using my wand to spark his and mine, I took a deep drag on it and blew out a plume of gray, waiting for his answer.

"Yes, I do," He said, taking an experimental drag, "Best in the class, hmm?"

"That I was," I said with a laugh, "I still have the potion. I never used it. I've been waiting for the right day but it never seems to come."

He laughed, "This is good, muggle made, is it?"

I shrugged, "I go to London sometimes. I take Becky there, you know, the Minister's daughter? She likes to shop."

"For what, muggles?" Slughorn muttered, smoking his cigarette.

"Clothes actually," I said. "My mother was a muggle-born."

"Brilliant witch," Slughorn said, looking at the rising sun. He turned to look at me.

"Hogwarts is…"

"Magical," I finished for him.

It truly was too.

My stomach rumbled in hunger, to my chagrin. We headed to the kitchens. As we walked at a slow and steady pace, he talked about his research with Mong potion to fight plant diseases. I liked the theory. "So do you think you can perfect it in time for the beginning of the school year?"

"Probably not," Slughorn said, "It takes a while, and a lot of work. I honestly don't have the energy. I'm getting old Harry and the war is truly in its hay-day. I am too busy with the Order work." He sighed and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, what can you do?

"I suppose you have no choice but to hold off," I said, "Research isn't too big right now with people dying left and right." We tickled the pear that opened the entrance to the kitchen. Everything inside was clean and porcelain white. House elves worked vigorously. I wondered if they would chant a song like Oompa Loompa. My mind drifted to the years of reading I had done in various libraries around the world. I was a hermit now just beginning to get out of my shell. Becky helped with that. She was a pretty girl with a ready smile and could always make me happy, no matter how shitty my day. I'd met her a year ago at a Minister hosted party that I got invited to (I usually got an invite to mostly everything) and decided on a whim to attend.

I was lonely that night because it was the anniversary of the night Hermione and Ron were killed in the Department of Mysteries. I wanted to get drunk out of my mind, but my friend Dean convinced me I should go, meet a few girls, have a few glasses of champaigne. "Don't waste your life, HP," Dean had said. He's a squib. He doesn't care about my fame. I met him while kayaking in Australia.

Becky was warm and soft and the match was perfect because she accepted me for who I was, just a boy, not the boy who lived. I didn't know why I couldn't accept responsibility for who I was. My weakness compared to Dumbledore and Voldemort hindered my progress in life by derailing my self esteem.

Ron and Hermione passed away in my fifth year when they came with me to the DoM, an acronym the Minister used in his speech to announce the return of Voldemort. Over a hot cup of tea Sirius told me it wasn't my fault, and then Dumbledore told me the prophecy and then Sirius took me for a broom ride but I never got over their deaths. Objectively I could see I was hurt inside, and the scar remained a fresh wound.

I could only hope, deep in my thoughts, while eating a bagel, that the wound would not become infected. A house elf brought us a plate of apples, plums, and orange slices.

I nibbled on a piece of fruit and drank some hot coffee. Slughorn put away two sausages and a pan of eggs as well as a cup of mushroom, tomatoe and cucumber salad sprinkled with honey. "It's my favorite dish," he told me while chewing. "I just love the taste, the texture, the aroma. Food is magical, Harry, there's something in it that's beyond every day spells. It's a subjective experience, like music, like dancing, like reading."

"Your potions create subjective experiences too," I reminded him, "Like the Felix Felicis luck potion, its all in your mind really, isn't it? That's why I never felt the need to use it, because it just affects your mind to behave in a different way."

"But what directs that behavior Harry? Nobody really knows, some believe it might be the streams of luck, as if there are invisible rivers of good and bad luck."

"Then I must be at a crossing of the two rivers," I muttered.

"I think we all are," Slughorn said.

After breakfast I went to the owlery to pen a letter to Becky. She expected me to write to her every day for the week I was staying at Hogwarts. We weren't quite living together, but we dated often, and my evenings with her were relaxing. I didn't bring any parchment but some was already there, along with a quill in the owlery. A low table and stool in the corner allowed me to sit and write, looking out the owlery at the shimmering lake view. I wanted to take a fly there later in the day on my firebolt. Dumbledore had invited me to stay at Hogwarts for a week or so this summer, no students around to bother us. Just me and him and the teachers. When I asked Dumbledore the purpose of this visit he told me had some important things to show me.

I sat there waiting but no words would come. Why would they not come? I didn't know. My thoughts jolted when a brown eagle passed me, a letter attached to her legs with a piece of wool string. Was it… the Malfoy bird? I recognized it vaguely. Flicking my wand at the circling bird, I shouted, "Impedimenta!"

The eagle slowed down and dropped to the ground. "Stupefy!" I said. A bright flash of red stunned the bird into unconsciousness. I waited to see any signs of twitching, and when their were none I decided it was safe to get the letter.

As I reached down to untie the string, the eagle lifted her eyes open with alertness and clawed my arm as quick as lighting. "Fuck," I swore, looking at the dagger cut on my arm. The eagle tried to fly away, but moved with a drunken haze that made it easy to strike her down with another stunning spell. This time, very carefully, I said, "Accio!"

The letter broke from the string and flew into my palms. It was made of old parchment, the kind that sits and waits in the darkest of chambers, aging respectfully. And the paper was thick too. I get lots of letters and I could always separate good quality from bad quality, in terms of paper anyways. That helped me make decisions. Anything of high quality meant the writer was trying to rope me into some party or some public event. I burned the letters without reading them.

This I did not burn but opened it carefully, gently. Wizards don't have envelopes, only folded parchments they tie on their owls and eagles with string. Unfolding the parchment I read the flowing handwriting carefully, as if each word held a secret.

"Dear Dumbledore,

I am sorry to hear about the attack on your Order of the Phoenix's base. Truly I did not know in time to warn you. I heard through the grapevine over ten of your best had been killed. I feel their loss just as you feel them, and I say this because I too am losing something, losing my mind. My son has been impenetrable. Bella taught him occlumency, and I can't touch him anymore with my thoughts, emotions: he has become a block of ice. I don't think I will be able to convince him to leave the path he is treading, any more than I can convince He Who Must Not Be Named to give himself up to the Aurors.

Anyways, if Lucius caught me writing you this letter he will have me butchered but there is a key piece of information I want to pass on, that you must hear! Lucius and the board of governors are going to push the ministry into passing a bill that allows them to select Professors to teach if a post is available. I fear the Defense Against the Dark Arts position will fall into the hands of the unqualified or worse, unworthy. The power to hire should be in the hands of the Headmaster, but Lucius has bribed the Minister of Magic into passing this bill with a promise of support to extend the financial aspects of his next campaign.

Draco is doing well however, he is about to marry soon and is keeping his activities subtle. I will keep trying. Hopefully marriage will soften him, but I know he has done bad things. I only plead, as a mother can, to be gentle with him when the time comes for justice to act.

Yours truly,

Narcissa Malfoy

I folded the letter and closed my eyes. A cool breeze rushed through my hair. Relaxing my tense shoulders I took a deep breath and walked to the eagle, tied the letter back as quickly as I could and after taking ten or fifteen steps back I casted, "Ennervate!" The eagle groggily took flight to Dumbledore's office.

The letter had given me inspiration for my own letter as I felt a touch of anger at the Minister for taking the bribe. I couldn't expect Becky to know about it of course, she didn't care about politics all that much and I liked that about her.

Sitting down at the stool I penned,

Hey Becky,

Kisses and hugs and all that stuff. I'm having a good time at Hogwarts, it feels like home to me. Can you believe I haven't even completed my seventh year? Maybe I should go back but at my age I would probably stand out… then again, don't I always? I like it here. No press, no media, no damn newspaper reporters cornering me for a hasty interview or asking (and then answering) questions.

I want to get the DADA position. I asked Dumbledore but he refused to discuss it. I think he'll change his mind soon.

I couldn't think of anything more to say so I ended it with a 'See you soon' and sent the letter off.

The day went desperately slowly. I was bored, even though I wanted some time for peace and quiet. I wondered through the library and found a book in the restricted section about 'Violent Spells' which I decided to read. The library was abandoned, and the stuffy old librarian had gone on vacation. Lucky me.

I didn't practice any of them but skimmed through the pictures and the incantations, and I did read one that I found interesting – a spell that rips the skin off the victim. It was used to cure boils and pimples but even the best of things can be used to do harm. The incantation, "Ellesuro," seemed easy to manage as was the wand movements, which consisted of a jab to the direction I wanted the spell to go and a clockwise twirl. I tried it, shot a beam of blue light at the table. The wood singed.

"Having fun, Harry?" Dumbledore asked as he stepped into view.

I gave him a guilty look.

He merely smiled. "As you know, Lucius is going to try his usual politicking to interfere with my school."

"I read the letter," I said casually. "Very interesting."

Dumbledore didn't react. I expect he had some sort of crystal ball to watch me. Or perhaps a portrait told him. I didn't know how nor did I particularly care. I knew Dumbledore wouldn't judge me. Because his mistakes far outweighed mine and he gave me a lot of leeway to do what I wanted.

"Then you must know I have no choice at the moment except to offer you the post of DADA," Dumbledore said. "You are my best candidate."

"But…?"

"I have reservations. Hogwarts is a safe place for you. However I do not want to draw Voldemort's attention to the castle more-"

"I understand," I said coolly. "I attract trouble. People might get hurt because of my presence."

Dumbledore nodded, looking like a wet dog left in the rain by an uncaring owner. "The truth is hard."

"I can't accept."

"Harry, don't make me ask Gildory Lockheart."

"Okay I accept."

Dear becky, my lovely…

I just came back from a fly around the lake, the wind on my face… I could smell the water, and the salt and feel the coolness of the droplets as it touched my face. Flying is my heart, Hogwarts my home. My father's animagus was a stag, you know, a sort of big deer. He had horns and a large strong body, I know this because my patronus has the shape of the stag, and looks exactly like my father's animagus. It has me wondering, what did my father pass on to me beside the stag form, held within my mind.

I don't know… wild messy hair perhaps. I got your letter last night, and yes my hair is messy but I do clean it, honest. It just never combs, no matter how hard I try. Your sister said I should try this soap… it just made my hair frizzy and I looked like a lunatic.

My mother didn't have any animagus form. She was… special in her own way. I think Prof. Slug (haha, nice nickname) says it best, brilliant witch. But I am not that kind of material, at least I don't think so. I have to be there on my mother's level: I am teaching soon, kids… or perhaps young adults because when I was their age I was as adult as anyone, having been through some violent experiences. Now I have to teach. I hope the lack of a seventh year education at Hoggy-Worts doesn't screw me in the face.

We're going to see each other often too. I arranged a floo meeting – private, totally private and away from the ministry network – between us tomorrow night. This way we can chat face to face, because I miss seeing your pretty face. Send me a photograph with your next letter. Your father, the Minister of Magic, is being false to his office. I have heard, confidential sources of Dumbledore's have informed me that he has taken a bribe from Lucius Malfoy and intends to pass a bill giving the Malfoy family more power over Hogwarts.

Becky you must not let this happen, no matter what.

I don't think I can teach these kids. I am a danger, a chemical attractant to trouble. Voldemort won't rest until he'll find me and then what will we do? What will the children do? I won't let them fight death eaters and basilisks or face werewolves and acrumantelas (those giant spiders). It ruins the soul.

The rain outside is creeping into me, making me think such somber and hard thoughts. I am not jovial right now, despite my awesome flight outside by the lake.

I feel annoyed, and relaxed also but annoyed. Dumbledore won't accept my decline of his offer – threatened me with that ponce Lockheart. I had to act so I said I'd take the job.

Fuck I am in a dilemma.

Send me pictures… everything… I want to see you having fun, eating an ice cream cone, swimming in one of those muggle pools I showed you and naked on the bed with nothing on but the foam of a strawberry shake…

I may visit you through the floo, no matter what your father thinks of it. He told me to stay away from you.

I am sorry for disobeying your father, sweat Becky, but I will not.

See you,

HP

I went to the Hospital Wing after lunch because Madam Pomfrey gave me a handwritten note sent by a house elf. She required my presence to facilitate healing.

Okay, I said, Okay, and in my mind I counted backward from ten to zero, sent the letter by owl, and followed the jittery elf.

He was kind enough to allow me a detour to the kitchens. I had a slice of pumpking cake with tea and biscuits. The food helped me concentrate better. My mind was clear and my stomach full. It readied me for the rest of the day.

The hospital wing had an aroma of medicine, like muggle hospitals, but it was corrupted by the scent of potions, corked and kept neatly along rows of shelves. I saw one that made me pause as I passed a few empty beds. It was called: Organsium Palanisum and it meant restorative. I had heard the potion was a stronger version of coffee. Its street name was magical amphetamines.

I grabbed three bottles and stuffed them in my robes. They were small glass bottles that fit difficultly into the smaller pocket. As I kept walking I put my finger on the pocket and casted, "Engorgio." That felt more comfortable.

"Harry Potter!" Madam Pomfrey screamed, her voice piercing the silence of the wing. I heard some shuffling. Madam Pomfrey slid into my view, a woman of enormous girth supported by a thick cane and a pair of horn rimmed glasses. Her eyebrows frowned at me, and her lips twitched disapprovingly as if she was trying to glare and growl and frown at the same time. "Why did you abandon your bed? You could have caught a cold, or pneumonia. You must stay in bed to heal," she said pushing me toward it. She smelt like bitter almonds. I heard that was the smell of cyanide. Had she killed someone? Something? An animal?

I saw it then, a brief glimpse through the curtain of a bed. It was a body. The body had a face I recognized: the face of a death eater, Anthony Rockwood.

So… Dumbledore raised the stakes of the war, responding to the attack with… this?

I didn't know what to think. So I tried to forget it and contemplate the enormosity of the idea later. "Erm, I am fine," I said, stopping her dragging. "Really."

"Stay until I check you over," she urged, "Please, Harry, it won't take long."

She put me next to the bed with the auror from last night. It was my old bed but I didn't feel like being in close proximity to Shacklebolt. He creeped me out. What he had been through… I knew… and I wanted nothing to do with it.

I settled into the bed, relaxing slowly, closed my eyes to see pictures and bright colors. That was okay, lack of sleep caused these things and over the last few months I had little sleep.

Madam Pomfrey came back a few minutes later, jabbed her wand into me a few times, muttered some things and left me to take a nap. Voldemort didn't bother me and I woke up refreshed twenty minutes later.

Kinglsey was staring at me. I saw him looking from the corner of my eye, and while turning to face him, he looked away suddenly.

"Hi, Kingsley," I said.

He didn't answer me, just stared at the ceiling. As if he was waiting for me to leave before farting.

I sighed, settled back into my bed and said, "Look I know Madam Pomfrey doesn't like anyone smoking in here, but you're probably dying for a cigarette?"

Kingsley looked at me then, an eyebrow raised. I took out my pack and handed him one, lit it for him with my wand and then lit one for myself. We dragged on them for a minute or so before Kingsley said, "Voldemort came first you know. He just charged right in."

I looked at the cigarette slowly dying away, took a puff, before answering, "Is that so?"

"Two death eaters followed him. He took out ten of our best aurors."

I took another puff, "Were you the only survivor?"

Kingsley nodded grimly, his cheeks clenched. "I survived because my partner sacrificed himself to save me."

"Just like my mother," I said. I started to take off my dragon skin boots, one at a time, before stopping and hearing clenched teeth grinding against each other. Kingsley, mad?

He closed his eyes when I glanced at him, taking a deep thoughtful drag. Opened them, and tossed the cigarette out a nearby window.

"That's right, just like your mother, and your friends."

"My friends came because I led them there. They had no choice-"

"They always had a choice Harry, their sacrifice meant something because they chose for it. That's why you can't feel guilty. I don't feel guilty about my partner. I respect his sacrifice."

"It's a-" I choked, "hmm, good philosophy."

I coughed and got up, tossed the stub to the ground, crushed it underneath my dragon leather boots. "I'll see you around, Shacklebolt."

Madam Pomfrey asked me where I was going. I just walked out and didn't say anything to her. I went straight to Hagrid's hut. He was away, doing business with his giant friends. I kept walking. My foot hit an overgrown root. Tripping, I fell to the ground, my knee hitting a sharp rock.

"Damn," I said angrily, getting up. "Fuckin' A!" I rushed to the forest, the outskirts that marked Hogwarts land and the Wild. Trees trying to reach the sky blocked my view of all and everything that lay beyond the wild line. Fog rolled from thunder clouds. It started to rain again, the ground already wet with a previous shower not long ago, filled up, puddles appearing everywhere almost at once.

Rushing into the forest for shelter from the rain, I trudged through puddles, water reached up to my knees wetting my robes even more than the shower on my back. I reached dry land under the safety of the canopy. I walked further into the darkness, cast a lumos charm with my wand. Bright white light stretched out from my wand in all directions, illuminating twigs and the trunks of large oak trees, the black eyes of an owl watching me from its nest, the silver sleek fur of a wolf rushing past a tree. It was a small wolf. I wasn't scared.

I reached into my pockets where I kept the cigarretes. I looked in the box and saw it was empty. Throwing the carton away I grumbled about my luck to the trees nearby. "If Voldemort were dead, all my problems would be solved," I said, ending my mutterings and crazed rambings.

I sat on one of the bigger trees, using the trunk as support for my back. Leaning toward the hardness of the wood, I heard the jingles of glass bottles in one of my other pockets. The engorging charm had still held. Reaching with my fist, and then my elbow, into the pocket I removed three of the vials.

Magical amphetamines. Dare I try it? They would help me stay awake certainly, keep me talking and acting up like a raving lunatic. Becky had once given me a muggle tablet of benzadrine, the muggle's amphetamines. I had tried it, kept me awake all night and alert. I felt like I was in the trenches of world war I, playing hero with a faulty gun. I downed the three potions one after the other in quick succession, thinking of Becky and the state of my life.

I didn't want to sleep, not tonight, not out here in the forest. The rain peltered the canopy and a few drops fell on the glass bottles I had cast to the ground. I watched it, my wand lighting them… the thousand colours of the rainbow blending white, the moonlit night, the twinkles of the stars, freshness of the pines, this is the night, sing a song, dance along. Move about, throw your wand away!

I threw it far, as far as I could, feeling the enhancing restoration take a hold of me. Drunkenness mixed with the alertness of a fighter pilot got me drumming my fingers to a beat only I could hear. Minds eyes and newt's ears, I felt the world mix and blend into the tears on a little girl's face. Blue eyes glowed brightly, calling out her innocence. "Why didn't you save me, Harry," said the voice of the little girl who hid in my mind, my guilty conscious.

Kingsley the Auror, big black and bold, stood in front of my path to hell. "STOP HARRY, FEEL THE MAGIC AROUND YOU! YOUR RESPECT DISTINGUISHES THEIR SACRIFICE!" His voice was so goddamn loud. I closed my eyes, closed my ears.

My heart was about to burst out of my chest, thundering at a thousand beats a minute.

I collapsed on my knees and wished this would stop. What had I drunk, what had I done, my body went crazy, my mind soon to follow. I was jerking, a seizure taking hold of my brain in her reptilian claws. I lay there on the damp and dry undergrowth, fully conscious and aware and awake, unable to move a single muscle as my life drifted in front of my eyes. I saw myself sitting in the cupboard, hungry and jealous of Dudley's birthday presents, I saw Ron laughing with me and Hermione scowling playfully on a sunny day as we walked around Hogwarts, sandwiches in our hands.

I saw the restoration of Lord Voldemort. Cedric's death replayed in my mind.

This that all and everything flashed, like strobe lights memories pulsated in my brain until I could take no more and fell to unconsciousness.

When the brew of amphetamines drowned my brain in magic juice I felt truly amazed at the oversensitivity of what I felt – the texture of the grass, smooth to the highest degree, the feel of the twigs underneath me, the extreme end of the sensitivity spectrum red alert.

"Whahtaffaa!" I couldn't make any sounds that resembled language. My tongue was swollen. Parents say never take candy from strangers. Why did nobody warn me never to take potions I didn't really know about. I tried to get up and I did, shakily. As I took in lungfuls of air the energy hit me, and I felt myself as high as a kite, full of dynamite explosive power ready to take on the world as only the young could.

I had to find my wand. Cursing my stupidity I tried to summon it to no avail. All my attempts at wandless magic failed me. The potion interfered in some way. A brick wall stood between me and my mind's ability to do wandless magic. The euphoria hit me harder and I reeled at the pleasure pressure underneath my eyeballs. Skull muscles contracted, ears perked as I listened to all and everything, the entire quadrant of auditory hallucinations jumping at me from all angles. I heard dragons roaring and blizzards crushing trucks stranded on abandoned highways. I saw muggles fighting muggles with guns and sticks and wizards fighting wizards, flashes of spellfire abounded in my vision. A prophecy ball crashed into fragments as I tried to reach for it but fell on twigs and dried leaves. The fragments turned to sand, the sand poured out of my hand and I felt my life flash before me in a single second. Futility rose in me, storms of broken self esteem. I walked a broken road to the destination of a failed life.

Someone clapped me on the shoulder. I whirled around to see a centaur who had grabbed a hold of me. He looked old; fur seemed to whiten with age from the dying light of the torch the centaur held with the other arm. "Come with me," he hissed. "Its not safe for you here!"

In a few moments I was upon his back, drugged out of my mind, riding through thickets of branches, leaves, thorns. Mosquitoes tried to bite me. My wandless magic seemed strong enough to repel them. I was recovering from my ordeal but my heart still thudded in my chest, and I felt pressure there, along with a dull ache seeping into my shoulders, left arm, palms. The tips of my fingers tingled and were numb. Anxiety and frustration poured into me. I had no defense. I threw my wand away when I needed it most.

Perhaps I needed the drugs the most. The amphetamines were kicking in and I felt awake, strong, alert, urged the centaur to go faster. He picked up speed, a surge of happiness flared – "Whoo!" I yelled, laughing in exhilaration. I felt the forest around me as if they were a part of me, and I was a part of it, united in its web of life where all things had their balance and their place in the chains that held the forest together in one entity. My mind was a blaze of light, following the centaurs path with my eyes that had adjusted to the dark I found myself thinking of my dead friends Ron and Hermione and of their sacrifice.

"We'll come with you, no matter what," Ron said, as a matter of fact when they discussed what to do with the vision and the departure to the Department of Mysteries.

"Harry," Hermione had said, placing a hand on my shoulder, "Let us help, we're your friends and we want to be beside you, to fight for you."

Ron nodded somberly and I could say nothing but let them come on a venture he knew deep in the back of his mind would not turn out well.

I rode the centaur well, like riding a fine horse well trained by the owner. But he did not direct the path through the winding darkness of the Forest. "I left my wand somewhere back there, we should turn, and search for it."

The centaur refused, told him it was too dangerous. "Why? What's the matter?" Harry asked.

"Voldemort," The centaur said, "I saw him, three miles from the edges of the Forest, coming directly inward. He is setting up a camp of giants in the forest, where he will use to attack Hogwarts and capture you."

"Voldemort wants to attack the castle just for me?" I marveled, "Why? Why am I so important?"

The centaur stopped its clodding pace and turned, looked at me, said nothing. Then he gazed at the sky where a bright red orb hung on invisible strings and a silver crescent cast moonlight upon his hairy face. "It is naught for me to say," he said at last. "Hurry, Harry Potter, we must get to safety."

I turned away from him and dismounted, "No, I need to find my wand first," I said. "I'm helpless without it."

The centaur snarled, "Its not safe here!"

"Its not safe for me anywhere," I said, and walked in the opposite direction, not knowing where I was going but certain the bluff would make the Centaur aid me in my search for my lost wand. The amphetamines gave me an illusionary bravery, one that I used to sharpen my mind and my senses. The aroma of the forest, from red berries hanging on shrubs to leaves that smelt as sour as limes and spiky thorn bushes all converged into one stink. Competitive twittering of birds died out as the night turned colder. I shivered in my thin robes and wanted a hot mug of coffee desperately.

"Come then," The centaur said gruffly, "I'll try to find your wand for you."

"Thank you," Harry said, "What is your name? I'll remember you."

"Bane," The centaur said. "I used to be chieftain once."

We traveled for at least forty five minutes before I recognized the location of the three glass bottles. From there, another thirty minute search took us close enough that a wandless accio spell could summon my wand. The effects of the amphetamines faded. My mind raced, thinking of everything at once and nothing at all, analyzing things I had long forgotten, remembering the past like a movie picture with absolute clarity. AN ephiphany hit me, then and there, about my 'Voldemort Problem.' I had to get stronger, get wiser, like Dumbledore, that was the goal, and the path was through hard work... or smart work, short cuts. I vowed to myself that I would investigate short cuts to attaining power. Maybe then I could be useless and actually do something about this goddamn war.

Once the holly wood fell within my grasp I felt a lot more confident about myself. "I need you to take me to Hogwarts, to warn Professor Dumlbedore."

"We cannot do that, it would put you in too much danger."

"He needs to know," I protested.

"There are no students there," Bane said, "Do not fear, Harry, the adult wizards know how to take care of themselves. Now we must come and join the rest of the clan who can protect you from the dangers lurking just beneath our noses."

I climbed on his back once again and didn't protest as he led the way deeper into the winding forest, as I felt a nudge of irritation blending with apprehension that twisted in the back of my mind, tingled at the base of my spine. The trees started to grow larger and more oppressing as if a blanket of terror pressured my neck into bending and breaking… "Such morbid thoughts," I said with a laugh, trying to dispel the sheer discomfort I was feeling.

The centaur didn't answer; he led me into grove of trees, with a mound of stones circled around a large bonfire. Centuars… big giant horse like creatures with man hands and man-horse faces, carrying axes and arrows, bows, torches with fires and one of them I saw even had a long piece of metal chain attached to a spiked ball. Medieval warfare among the animals.

The centuar threw me off his back. I fell face first to the ground, little sharp twigs catching on my robes. Got up, brushed myself off, and said angrily, "Look here-"

"Harry Potter," a rough voice boomed through the clearing. A centaur came into view with completely black fur, with gigantic muscular arms and black eyes that held no mercy. He was twice as large as any other centuar, the Hagrid of the centaurs. There was a glint in his eyes that said something. My intuition warned me, gave me a discomforting feeling about the creature before me. "I address you as chieften of my clan, as the sole authority of law and justice, life and death in my lands, the Forbidden Forest to you human wizards. You trespass!"

"Not intentionally," I said, "Your Bane brought me here," I pointed to him. "I would have left to get back to my castle but he promised me safety from Voldemort."

"Then he lied," the chieften said coldly, "Bane is in no position to make promises. By the challenges of the Centaur People, he has lost his cheiftenship and exists merely on my good will." The chieften picked up an axe that had been embedded near the bonfire and threw it at Bane's head.

Bane tried to dodge. The axe lodged itself in his skull. He crumpled to all fours, to the ground and sang an agony cry.

"We are going to trade you for our protection," The Chieften said, "Voldemort has promised us safe passage in the times to come, as well as isolated lands for our own use, our own lands without human intruders. I have made my decision."

"Wait please," I begged, "Reconsider, I am the boy who lived and the only one who can stop him."

"We know that!" The Chieften roared, spittle flying from his gaping mouth. Harry counted rows of carnivorous teeth. "The stars tell us all, you have failed, and you will not be around for much longer. The stars predict your demise."

"That's not true," said Bane, his voice weak, his eyes dull. "I have read the scriptures and watched the stars, Harry is the champion of the light. We belong to the light! We are his friends."

The Chieften's eyes narrowed. He cobbled to him and with silent eyes, stamped over Bane's head with his hooves three times, crushing the skull. Bane's death made my feet turn to ice and my heart stop beating.

The centuars proceeded to tie me up to a tree with thick rope that would not budge no matter how hard I tried. They tied me up tightly with no room for me to maneouver. I was stuck. My wand, which rested under my belt, had not been touched. They were too stupid, or they underestimated what I could do wandlessly.

They waited, I heard whispered converstations and realized coldly that Voldemort was coming to this encampment to dialogue with the Centaurs, the way a diplomat would come to represent a country. I shuddered: The Centuars had betrayed their land, had betrayed Hogwarts. My anger and rage, combined with the potions I had taken, fuelled my rage. I reached toward my wand, barely touching it, and shouted, "Explodara!"

My wand was pointing to the sky, away from me, as I said that. But I still got hurt in the resulting explosion of the bright black light. The ropes sizzled away instantly, and a tree directly in the path of the spell burst into flames. Using the distraction, I ducked, rolled and sent out a stunner at one of the centuars. It didn't affect him. I had to use harder spells, racking my memory of the training I had spent with Sirius instead of attending seventh year, my old duelling skills arose in my like a lost forgotten friend. I fired several stunners as I took higher ground. An arrow whistled past my face.

I swirled, "Hobestarisa!" The spell swirled into a band of centaurs, coating them with hot lava. Their animal screams filled the night, and gave away my position - The chieften charged toward me.

I didn't have much time left. Ducking under his axe swing, I jabbed my wand into his side and yelled, coiling my hatred of him (and of myself, and of life and everything, because hate unifies a man's whole life) into a pointed spear of magic, "AVADA KEDAVRA!" The green flash of light downed him and a brief period of silence followed during which no other centuar was willing to approach me.

We were at a standstill.

One of the younger centaurs made the first move, fired an arrow.

I dodged yet it scraped my shoulder, drawing a needle thin line of blood. Others soon followed, "Protego!" I exclaimed, allowing magic to shield me from a flood of arrows. My shield buckled under the strain. I backed away, took cover behind a tree and tried to remember my strongest shielding spells, knowing I wouldn't last long.

As the battle raged, a piece of my mind rested on one fact: Voldemort would be here at any moment!

Chapter Five

I raised my wand, swung it in an arc and cried out a cutting spell which severed a tree. A group of centaurs leapt out of the way of the cutting spell, answering back with arrows. One of them hit my shoulder, piercing it, drawing blood and pain that engulfed everything. I moved past it, forcing my mind to hold control and calmness but everything leaked out of me the way water seeps out of cupped hands.

A bright light flashed in front of my face. An arrow lit with fire approached me from the distance, arcing downward toward where I stood. I ran, ducking behind a forest. Several shafts lodged themselves into the wood with a thunk. I felt my heart hammering in my chest as anxiety and tension overtook my senses. I wanted to run away, as far as I could. My logical mind told me this was the wrong idea.

Take control Potter, think.

Regarding my gryffindor instincts: they were all but gone after Ron and Hermione's death. Sirius tried to nudge it back to life with dueling training. That helped as I fired several fire spells toward the centuars, my wand moving in intricate patterns remembered only from muscle memory and the brief times I practiced the fire spells.

Jets of blue and orange flame raced across the ground littered with soft moss, sparking everything around us in a gigantic ball of flame. The distraction gave me a few seconds but I was highly visible.

I felt myself in pain as multiple wounds competed for attention. No time. A centuar ran into me, pushing me to the ground. A hoof hit my head. I blacked out.

When I woke up the first thing I saw was Voldemort. The Dark Lord wore a simple black cloak. His yew wand flashed in front of me, and I felt pain all over my body, mild compared to the cruciatus curse.

"Awake Harry?" Voldemort said, "I do not like to wait."

"Voldemort," I growled out, "Finally caught me, huh?"

"I admit you've been proving very hard to find but... look at us now, hmm?

Two old friends having a night out."

I looked around and saw we were all alone. The centauars had vanished and I had nobody around me who would help me. I was truly by myself and I had to get out of this situation using only my wits and cunning.

"Look, Voldemort, you've offered me an alliance many times during my life. Can I ask you a question?" My voice was weak. My eyes held strength.

"Go ahead," Voldemort said shortly, his red eyes narrowed.

"Why did I never join you?"

That question gave him pause, and he touched a bony white finger to my forehead, my scar, "We're connected, Harry," he said as pain broke loose through my brain.

"Yes, connected by the tunnel of light," I said, "You've noticed it too, the tunnel is getting closer, is breaking apart."

"And that is why I am here, Harry," Voldemort said, moving back. He waved his wand and my restraints fell off me. I was tied to a tree, and when the ropes broke loose I fell on all fours. "We are connected through ancient magic."

"You want to convince me to join you?" I asked. "You know my answer, but do you know why?"

"No, I don't," Voldemort said after a time. "But I do know you are weak, no match for me."

"Then the prophecy is wrong?" I started to laugh, not a wise thing to do in front of the Dark Lord.

He cast the cruciatus at me, his wand pushed deep into my stomach. I screamed, my eyes burned and my skin smoldered. Every nerve stretched and felt as if it would snap like taut strings. I seized and screamed my voice hoarse.

"How does that feel?" Voldemort hissed, his whole body responding to my screams with ecstasy. He shivered. I sobbed from the pain, tears rolled down my face like the Niagra Falls. "Do you remember your father, Harry? Your mother? I killed them, butchered the two like cattle. They were scum, weaklings, and so are you."

His words roused an anger within me that broke the hold of the cruciatus curse. Hurting, on the ground whimpering, I felt for my wand mentally and cried out, "Accio!" The wand hit my palm with a faint smack. I rose up to my feet. Voldemort looked amused.

"Shall we bow?" I said bravely, "Perhaps a duel?"

His face coloured slightly, and tensing his forearms he raised his wand in a smooth motion, sending a ball of green light toward me. I ducked, and nimbly dodged the spell. It exploded behind me. Showering splinters of wood embedded in my hamstrings. I was getting tired.

I felt no idea how to proceed from here, my mind was a confused tumble of thoughts and images. The duel with Lord Voldemort went quickly, in seconds that felt as though hours had passed. Pain after pain leapt upon my broken and battered body but I held on, dodging spells and sending flashes of magical light back, using every skill in my arsenal.

"Secumdio!" Voldemort casted. A smokey grey light came out of his wand and engulfed us in a circle, as the circle widened it progressively turned into a dome that trapped the two of us in. "The order is trying to find us. They will not succeed," Voldemort said, grinning. "Its just you and I Harry, can you summon your Gryffindor courage and face me like your father did?"

I was hiding behind a tree trunk. I didn't take the bait. Sirius had taught me a spell that he said should only be used in emergencies.

I decided it was time to summon a demon. Working my way through runes which I drew in the air with my wand, I hummed an ancient spell four lines long and as I did so I felt weakness in all my limbs. My arms turned to butter and my legs went soft like a pillow.

I stepped away from the protection of the tree. Voldemort cast a spell I didn't know. A purple blaze of light charged toward me. I released the energy held in the runes and let the demon come out.

The runes glowed red, floated in the air, looked like hieroglyphics written on pyramids, Greek letters and Hindi letters blended together to form an esoteric language as ancient as the human race. Sirius didn't know a lot about it, said it was a black family secret to summon this sort of thing, this demon from the nether world.

I wasn't sure what would happen. I waited with tense anticipation. Voldemort felt the charge of magic building up in the air, crackling with ferocious energy and he too stopped, looked around as if sniffing prey. He looked like a wolf and a snake morphed into one cunning and ferocious predator. I was afraid this would be my lost shot to get out of this mess. The black dome covered us and looked as thick as steel. Fog swirled around our feet. Flames crackled in the distance, burning twigs and dry leaves.

There was a brief flash of light before the runes arranged themselves into a circle, a portal of pure yellow light swirled inside that circle and from within, black eyes that looked like thick triangles watched us. In an instant the creature leaped out, a hideous beast darker than the night, blacker than crude oil.

It looked like an overgrown lion, except its scales were covered in a slimy green ooze, and its eyes glared at us with utmost hatred. Violence leapt from his gaze. I wondered if I had made a mistake. It growled at me, growled at Voldemort who also took a step back, a smirk on his face.

"Dark magic, Harry," he said in amusement, "Very dark. I am impressed. How did you learn this fine piece of rune work, Harry?"

I found myself answering him, even though it wasn't the best of ideas. "The Black library, Sirius told me about it, said its a closely guarded secret."

"Do you know why they guard it closely?" Voldemort asked, almost casually as though talking about the lunch menu. "Because the demon will ask a sacrifice of you, Harry."

Voldemort and the demon circled each other like predatory hungry jungle cats, about to claw each other's eyes out.

"What kind of sacrifice?" I asked hurriedly, going toward the dome on the far side. Let the demon and the Dark Lord keep each other busy while I escaped.

"A piece of your soul," Voldemort said, and then laughed, a hideous chuckle that made my blood turn ice cold.

"W-what?" I swirled around, yelling.

The demon charged at Voldemort, its claws ripping through three spells cast by the Dark Lord like it was butter. It leapt at Voldemort, who blasted the demon with a silent spell that emitted a noise of buzzing bees.

Silence descended over the forest, the demon started to growl as it got back on its feet. Its eyes were supremely active and took in everything at once. Its gaze hovered toward me for a moment, sifting through my thoughts, memories. My occlumency shields, paltry though they were, stood no chance under the gaze of the demon. Memories and emotions, thoughts, ideas, aspirations, all poured into the demon, feeding him, giving him magical strength. Before my eyes the demon grew larger, and what once looked like a grotesque lion now looked like a mutated mammoth with horns protruding out of its skull.

"It can change its shape," I said, marveling and terrified at the same time. I took in a deep breath, got a hold of myself, and tried: "Stupefy!"

The bright light hit the dome, and fizzled away upon touching it. Dissapointed I turned my attention to the ensuing fight between the demon and Voldemort.

The fight was even, with the Dark Lord sending spell after spell to halt the demon's progress, and the demon ripping through them with claws of obsidian. Then, Voldemort hit the demon's belly with a killing curse that sent him flying fifteen feet away. Sweat beads lined my brow. My demon had failed...

Or not.

it stood up.

The goddamn evil animal fucking stood up after a goddamn killing curse.

It charged at Voldemort, clawed him across the chest. Voldemort, not idle, sent another killing curse, this time hitting one of its eyes.

Meanwhile I sent spell after spell on the dome, dividing my attention between the fight and getting out of my prison. It was futile. No good. I was doomed.

The demon fell to the ground, and dissipated into fragments like a jigsaw puzzle, fully connected, falling to the floor. With smoke and a fragrance of ozone mixed with a fish odor, the demon was gone from this world.

And I felt slightly reduced, not physically or mentally, but in my deepest core.

"Do you feel the emptiness, Harry?" Voldemort asked casually as if he had all the time in the world. "The hole in your belly, in your heart, in your whole being? It is your soul, fragmented."

"What's happened?" I asked in confusion. "I don't understand, my soul- how can it break apart? I don't feel that different."

"You will, you will in time," Voldemort murmured. "That is, if I let you live."

"You won't, don't think you can get me to play your games," I spat out. "You murdered my parents, and I'll kill you one day," I said, "I will fucking murder you like you murdered my mom and dad!"

I raised my wand, pointed it at his chest.

Voldemort laughed.

I yelled out, "Avada Kedavra!"

The bolt of green light came from within my very being, pungent and strong and highly powerful. The hairs on the back of my neck, on my hands, on my legs all stood on end. Even Voldemort looked surprised at the strength of my killing curse. Hatred, a new kind I had never known before, poured out of me, through my wand, rushed toward my most hated foe.

I wanted to kill him, I really did.

My soul... torn apart by the demon turned into a godsend. I felt power surge through me, a power that came only from the hatred I felt right now. The feeling was like a chemical buzz, euphoria.

The jet of green death hit Voldemort in the chest and he fell to the ground.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two **

Sirius taught me many things during the seventh year of my Hogwarts education, the one I chose not to attend. He taught me dueling, fighting, picking up girls and living life to the fullest. He also taught me something that may have saved my life or condemned me to an exile into the shadows of the underworld.

We lived in a white mansion overlooking a grove of cedar trees. Behind us, a pond stretched wide and far, with a variety of life taking up home there like frogs, garden snakes, mosquitoes, dragon flies and the occasional baby crocodile Sirius put to scare me.

The day he taught me the rune charm for summoning a demon was the day the newspapers showed this on the front page:

_Picture: Bodies lay strewn on the ground in Diagon Alley attack. You Know Who and over thirty death eaters overpowered aurors, mass slaughter._

_Headline: MASS SLAUGHTER IN DIAGON ALLEY _

_Article: The fight continues. This morning, You Know Who strolled down Diagon Alley's busiest hour, the time students of Hogwarts shopped for their school supplies. The morning air was fragrant with chocolate frogs and candy, and voices of children intermingled with the daily shenanigans of the Diagon Alley regulars. Hags and witches haggled over the price of newt's eye and frog scales. Finely dressed wizards purchased wands for their sons and daughters. Peace came to the Alley after a great period of distress, struggle. The Ministry assured us we were safe, that the Dark Lord had left Britain. This reporter, present on the scene, protests otherwise. _

_The first signs of an attack occurred at exactly seven a.m, when I felt a buzzing sound, and asking others in the alley going about their day they also heard the buzzing sound, as faint on the ears as the odor of lilies and chamomile flowers on the wind. I was picking the flowers for my wife. She had given birth two days ago. I wanted to show her my love… Other lovers, scholars, workers and ultimately all witches, wizards, and the members of a close knit community: The Magical World, all suffered a disastrous blow when the wards of Diagon Alley fell. The buzzing sound turned instantly very very loud, as if my ears would bleed and I'd be deaf. That didn't happen. The loudness receded, and the second sign of trouble was the heavy crack of multiple apparitions. I did not know where they came from exactly, but I do know when I saw the organized mob of black robes and skull white masks I feared for my life. Running into Olivander's wand shop I took safety there and watched from the dusty window: death eaters butchered everyone on the streets with killing curses. _

_I asked Olivander for the floo. He said he didn't have one. I was shut in, trapped in the small hovel of unused wands with an old man who was unfit for any sort of battle. The Death Eaters hadn't entered the shops, they were clearing the streets. I knew it was only a matter of time. _

_Another crack of apparition caused all the spellfire to stop completely. My mind exploded with sheer terror when my eyes greeted the visage of the Dark Lord. _

_He was tall, around six feet, with a lithe agility and grace that seemed to go against his age, which rumor has it is around seventy five or eighty five. His skin was stretched taught against his muscles. Cheek bones prominent, eyes full and bulbous, with a scarlet tinge that drew everyone in. He was dressed simply yet richly: black robes of silk, boots of basilisk skin, a chain of golden beads around his wrist that shimmered in the light, seemed to appear and disappear from existence randomly. I wondered what it was for. I also wondered if anyone dared to ask. _

_I watched him walk to a mother carrying her baby. She pleaded for her life and that of her son's. The Dark Lord allowed her to go. That was the only act of mercy I had witnessed in the whole ordeal. I do not know why the Dark Lord let a mother and her son go but I suspect it has to do with the Chosen One, Harry Potter, who survived the killing curse when he was a baby due to (rumor has it) his mother's sacrifice. Perhaps the Dark Lord did not want to meet similar circumstances. _

_Nevertheless he scoured the area, swiftly casting spell after spell unknown to me. The air crackled with power. I felt sweaty and hot, as if I were in a furnace. Crouched in a corner by the window, peeking surreptitiously, my only thought was to get back to my wife and child. One of his spells rocketed toward a ten year old girl in a purple dress, running toward a side alley. It burned her entirely as if she had been engulfed in a fireball. I will always remember her scream. _

_Multiple cracks of apparitions echoed throughout the alley. My spirits soared at the sight of masses of red cloaked figures, with eyes of determination, and steady wands. The aurors were here to stop this madness. Death eaters and aurors dueled furiously, while the Dark Lord watched, waited. _

_I knew exactly who he was waiting for, the Chosen One, Harry Potter. _

_I felt hope rise to a higher octave within me, as spells ricocheted off walls and all the colors of spell fire merged into a pulse of organic powerful light. The sheer intensity of magic concentrated at this location served to induce euphoria and triggered an impulse in me to run outside and join the dance of magic. A wizarding war is unique. It can be as addictive as a drug, as pleasurable as a drug, and as lethal as a Bengal tiger. _

_The Dark Lord walked among the carnage, cleaving a path before him with the scythe that was his wand, using a variety of spells, curses, hexes, jinxes with no effort at all. Within minutes the aurors were retreating under the brute force of the Dark Lord's attack. _

_Then, a single crack of apparition saved the day. _

_He came as calm and unruffled as if he were dropping by for a cup of tea. His robes, as ugly and garish as always were dastardly brown, with pink dots spotted on them. His long beard shifted with the wind. Blue eyes surveyed the scene with calm, cold eyes. _

_Albus Dumbledore was here. I cannot begin to describe what I felt at his presence, but it was unlike anything I'd felt before. The man emitted something, some radiation of magical power that far outweighed anything on the field, including the Dark Lord's presence. That power was humbling… to everyone, I believe. The sheer force of his blue eyed gaze blanketed us all, suffocated us with a power we could feel, as tangible as a thick coat. I smelled the odors of a warm summer day enhanced by a thousand times. The scent of grass overpowered me to my knees. What was going on here? A wizarding battle is usually a trivial thing, fire a few spells and whoever falls loses. _

_This was no ordinary battle. Two Lords had come to duel. The Dark Lord's strength was palpatable, as if carnage came in human form; a sense of death filled the battle field the moment the two caught sight of each other. I knew, then and there, that I wouldn't survive this day, and fully expecting to die, I stood up and walked outside. _

_Or rather, I was summoned outside, as were others who hid in shops and buildings._

_The aurors continued their battle, this time with a little more force and confidence. Death eaters desperately fought the onslaught and seemed to succeed very well. _

_The two giants eyed each other from across the battle field. Unhurriedly they began to walk toward each other and everyone, death eater or auror, knew well to keep out of their way. _

_"You cannot win," Dumbledore announced, "Not against all of us, united." _

_It was true. We could feel the bond between us, facilitated by a magic only Dumbledore knew. _

_They fought then after a verbal exchange I could not hear. The fight took all forms of magic into account and displayed them to the extent of a life spent studying these branches of magic, immersing oneself into it the way a person would submerge himself in a bath tub of warm water. Transfiguration occurred, charm work occurred, dark arts occurred, but those words cannot express the depth of their minds. Magic flowed between them at a very intense pace. The speed of sound meant nothing to them, one moment here, the next a flash of the Dark Lord and Dumbledore there, on the rooftops, an instant later back on the streets, transfiguring broken cobble stones into dragons and lions and snakes as big as a quidditch pitch. _

_Wizarding duels can be short or dreadfully long. This one had no sense of time, or rather, time had left this place in response to the magical energy expended on each other by the two very powerful wizards. I felt disconnected from my senses, rather like walking around in a dream. I drew my wand, however, and waited, watching amid the chaos of the dueling aurors and death eaters. _

_The Dark Lord raised his wand, uttered something cold and viciously powerful, and a jet of black light sweeped across Diagon Alley, killing everything in its path, including his own death eaters. _

_Dumbledore countered with a shimmering cascade of blue spheres. _

_It was too late. The slaughter could not be stopped. The Dark Lord and his remaining death eaters disappeared with the sound of a crack that seemed to sweep a curtain off my perceptions. I was back again, back to being my normal self. _

_Being caught up in a true wizard duel is absolutely mind bending. I just hope it doesn't have to happen again yet I know it must… until the Dark Lord is stopped there will always be brave wizards willing to fight him, like Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter. _

_-Written by Richard Skeeter for the Daily Prophet _

When Sirius read the newspaper he took me aside from my flying – I loved to fly over the pond in the mornings – and sat me down over a cup of coffee. I knew he only drank coffee when there was something troubling him, so I listened patiently as he floundered around with the Daily Prophet looking very flustered.

"There's a Black tradition," Sirius began, "Of a particular runic spell being passed down from father to first born son." He searched me with his intensely troubled eyes.

"What's the spell?" I asked eagerly. I was barely seventeen and eager to know everything about magic. My thirst had not been slaked or satiated by any means.

Sirius Black cleared his throat, his grey-black hair perfectly combed, and his face shaved. He looked like a banker rather than an ex-con. "Well, there are- I mean, let me start off with some basics. How many branches of magic are there, Harry?"

"Do you mean subjects? I dunno, I guess maybe ten or fifteen?"

"Wrong, Harry," Sirius said, nursing his drink in the palms of his hands. "There are thousands, most of them ancient and lost to us, some still in existence passed down in secret, and some hidden… in caves, mountains, oceans… Magic has no limitations, Harry, which is what the essence of magic implies, art without limit.

"When I was eleven years old, the night before I would attend Hogwarts, my father took me aside to a local inn, and told me about this spell. He said it was a thin branch of magic, obscure and forgotten by most of the world. He said he knew it because his father knew it and told him the night before he would attend Hogwarts and so on, father to son, for millennia."

"Go on," I said.

"The spell, Harry," Sirius said, looking at me with a ferocious gleam in his eyes, "calls forth a demon into this world."

He proceeded to draw runes on old bits of parchment. I tried to talk some sense into him, "There's no such things as demons, Sirius," I said in desperation for I was a little bit afraid Sirius was loosing it again. His twelve year stay in Azkaban had made him a very different man from the friend James and Lily knew. He was hard, crafty, and imaginative. It made for a bad combination.

"There is," Sirius protested, continuing to draw using quill and blue ink. The parchments laid out before me on the table showed numerous runes that I could make no headway with, no matter how I looked at it or from what I head read in Beginner's Guide to Runes over the past few weeks – upon Sirius's instructions.

"What do these runes signify? A demon is what exactly?" I asked, trying to go through the academic route to get to him and stabilize his wonky persona and intense mood swings.

He did not explain right away. Instead, looking intensely at the pictures on the parchment he said to me, "Harry, there are things in this world too dangerous to fall into the wrong hands. I know this because my father burned the knowledge into my soul using an archaic spell of his own creation. I know this… because I have to know it. You don't, you have no obligation and I do not want to trap you, to imprison you." He took a long sip of coffee before continuing.

"I have lived in the worst hell hole in the entire world and the knowledge came to me, to the forefronts of my disarrayed brain. The way to summon a demon, Harry, and fight for you is the ultimate family weapon, used in ancient times to protect themselves against other vicious and power hungry clans of purebloods."

"I'm curious, Sirius, what sort of magic are you talking about here, light or dark?"

I fixed him with a very Hermione look, as if rule and law were the touchstones of good manners and he was being rude.

A shadow passed his face. "I'm telling you a very dark, dark piece of knowledge, in the hopes that it may save your life."

His look sobered me, "Alright, teach me," I beckoned and he taught me, slowly, ponderously. It took a week before we made the first experiment with demon summoning.

Our mansion overlooks a grove of cedar trees, and we went there. Sirius had dressed in a Native American poncho, and he carried a curious black bag he said we would need. I memorized the runes and went through them in my mind as we walked down a familiar trail through the groves. We stopped at a place where darkness reigned due to the height of the trees, circling us in a cocoon of sensory isolation. He lit a fire with stones and sticks instead of using his wand. "Our magic will contaminate the sight, and make the spell work wonky," Sirius explained as he drew runes into the grass with a penknife.

"So what happens if I cast a spell here?" I asked.

"The demon will be deformed, or nothing will happen," Sirius said, "Either way, a waste of time and energy."

"I see," I said, "Have you done this before?"

Sirius gazed at me with a faraway look, "Once, in my seventh year, with your father."

My eyebrows rose, "My father summoned a demon?"

"He summoned a spirit," Sirius said, "From the beyond. It was old magic, Potter magic. In return I summoned a demon."

I cleared my throat and began helping him draw the runes. Once we finished, we lit candles in a circle, sat down at the center and spoke the ancient charm in a loud voice that sharpened the silence.

_Eliahaar Megatha Mongicka_

_Soowanni Hyuggachark Mijghaszan _

_Om__ Seepoin Demm Oinn _

_Blasoy Erry Wesjulla Rijizzini _

The silence returned after the chant, and a shiver rose up my back like a cold hand playing the piano on my nerves. "Sirius," I hissed, "Nothing's happening!"

"Wait," he hissed back. We made eye contact, and then broke apart quickly. We were both scared.

The air thickened and an aroma of lemons floated through the clearing. The air shimmered, became denser, and cooled to a liquid ball. A small creature appeared from the ball of bluish green liquid. Its red-black eyes were those of insect type, body of frog scales, reptilian wings and a strange antenna on the forehead, with three mouths on its face arranged randomly.

Sirius commanded, "Demon, I have summoned you and bid thee to destroy the tree!" He pointed at an aged cedar tree. The demon leaped toward it and clawed, chewed, and assaulted it with every capability in its physical capacity.

"Do you see, Harry?" Sirius asked. I looked at him, nodded.

"Let's go home," I said.

Sirius drew his wand, as did I, and we both shouted: "AVADA KEDAVRA!" The beast died and disappeared in a plume of red smoke that dispersed to the sky.

We didn't say anything to each other that day, both off in our own worlds. I read a novel about aliens and detectives and then went to sleep on an empty stomach.

I dreamt of the demon. The eyes clawed at my heart and my scar hurt in the morning.

I felt dirty.

I witnessed the death of Lord Voldemort. My shackles of binding prophecy broke and a burden lifted off me as I faced the fallen body of Lord Voldemort, unmoving on the grassy, muddy ground of the Forbidden Forest. The moonlight shimmered around him and I walked two steps closer to get a better look at his face.

Meanwhile, the air seemed to warm as if a summer breeze had blown by. Voldemort looked cold and desolate, like a skeleton made of bone and clay.

I turned to the source of the warmth as a current of wind blew by my hair. The area where the demon had fallen bubbled. Smoke rose upward, a harsh black fog that touched me and burned my eyes, throat, and skin. I leapt back, grabbed my wand and shouted, "Protego!" A silver shield shimmered before me, blocking out the limbs of the shadow-smoke.

My demon, I thought, has nine lives.

I wondered whether to turn tail and run, or to blast the demon with an Avada Kedavra. My shield held, the silver effectively combating the mist. It reminded me of dementors, the way their black shimmering cloaks looked like smoke.

It gave me an idea. I took down my shield and thought of my happiest memory: the night Hermione and Ron and I had in our summer of fourth year when we watched the Quidditch world cup and shouted, "Expecto Patronum." A bright mist of light erupted from my wand, taking the sold shape of a stag that charged into the mist, driving the demon away.

I felt a tugging on my chest as if a bond between me and the demon existed, and was being stretched. I wanted to chase the demon but held myself in check. Voldemort was a mere corpse. I walked over to the dark lord and kicked him in the stomach. I got no response. A hiss alerted my attention to a long black snake as thick as my thigh. Protruded fangs threatened at me, and I stepped back. The snake lunged toward Voldemort, wrapped him in her coils and did not move.

I knew what I had to do. Raising my wand, I said, "Incendio!"

Fire burst out of my wand, burning and chewing on the snake and on Voldemort's body. They perished into ash and smoke and nothingness.

Walking out of the forbidden forest, I thought to myself, I won! I fulfilled the prophecy. Laughing, I went to the greenhouse where Sprout grew marijuana and clipped a few buds off for my personal use. I sat myself down on the potent soil of the greenhouse and proceeded to take out my Native American pipe. I lit a bowl and breathed in the smoke deeply, letting my lungs burn at its heat. I let it out, felt a wave of dizziness.

The smoke smelled sweet and nice, like a gentle bath that lulled me into a state of complete calm and relaxation. My scar didn't hurt anymore and the weed was very nice, on a night like this. I thought about Becky and our future together, and wondered if we would marry someday and have kids.

I didn't know about the future but I did know this: I had won.

The prophecy and the battles had changed me. I was stronger, harder as a person. I matured from a child to an adult and in that transition I saved the world by summoning a demon on the advice of Sirius Black.

But the demon still existed.

My soul, fragmented.

I was cold and harsh and all trouble, no warmth no softness rested inside me. I didn't know who I was anymore, but I knew I wasn't the same person.

I smoked my weed and went to my peanut butter and jelly smelling bed and went to a long deep sleep.

I woke up awake, and that was saying something. My sleep was dreamless so I was not tired as usual. I went down to the kitchens for a bagel and said hello to the surprised house elves. Then I went to my room and smoked a cigar, while masturbating vigorously. I took a shower, shaved and dressed in my finest clothes.

Waiting for me downstairs in the common room of the Gryffindor tower, which was thankfully empty, was a broomstick, a fine present all done up with a purple rainbow. I opened the present, sure of the broom make: firebolt.

Yes, the broom looked magnificient. On the desk there were many letters, a pile high. On the tables and chairs also letters rested, sporadic and littered with boxes of presents. The whole room was a housing spot of gratitude throughout Britain, resonating in my chambers in the form of praise, gifts, and thanks.

It seemed the whole of the wizarding world knew what I had accomplished. I felt proud yet exposed, as if naked without my clothes.

I took a walk by the lake, and marveled at the scents, the feel of the ground hard beneath me, the early morning light that captured me in silk chains of beauty. I never wanted to leave Hogwarts, leave my home because here I was safe. I lit up a cigarette and felt the nicotine head rush affect me different today, more sensitive to the effects I felt happy and energetic, as if I could jump to the sky. The euphoria hit me softly like the waves made by the wind on the lake.

"Hello Harry," Dumbledore said gently, his eyes a twinkling explosion. "How are you doing after last night's ordeal?"

"I'm feeling healthy, professor," I said, "I'm going to be a professor myself, aren't I?"

"Yes, you are," Dumbledore said, "Perhaps the curse has been lifted," he raised his hand and pointed it to the sky. "It is after all a new day."

"Maybe you're right," I said, taking out my native American pipe, "But in the mean time I say live and let live, and enjoy the moment."

Dumbledore looked at me curiously. I smiled and lit myself a bowl. Dumbledore didn't say anything, but stood there with me, enjoying the weather.

"So how did everyone know about me, and about the duel?"

"Nobody really knows," Dumlbedore admitted, "But last night all the death eaters mysteriously perished of a heart attack. The cause of death was listed as unknown magic."

"So you inferred Voldemort had been destroyed and spread the good news?"

Dumbledore beamed at me, "I'm sure you will be a brilliant teacher, Harry," he said, "Now isn't it time to prepare for your classes?"

"You mean lesson plans, don't you?" I said with a sigh, "Yes alright, I'll do that but I think I'll go back to my apartment, I haven't seen Becky in a while and I want to relax."

"Everyone congratulates you, Harry," Dumbledore said, "You're a hero. But tell me, what happened last night?"

I shrugged because I didn't want to tell Dumbledore my soul was cracked and about to break and that I could feel the process happening, I was becoming more and more disconnected from the world.

I hastily said good bye and went to the library. I felt a rage in my heart unlike anything I'd known before. My chest hurt and my face was flushed red. I was really angry for no reason at all.

I read books all day and absorbed myself in my reading.

A single reporter entered Hogwarts by sailing across the lake in a conjured submarine. It was a brilliant piece of magic Dumbledore would come to admit later. The reporter's name was Collin Creevey, and I had known him as an eager boy with a servile mind. He had changed to an eager man with a servile mind, mixed in with ingenuity and sheer guts. I granted him an interview.

We sat facing each other in an empty classroom. I had my back to the chalk board and he, as if a student, sat eager to learn and soak knowledge in, with parchment spread out in front of him. "So, Harry, it's been a while since we've last connected, hasn't it? I've quit my job as a teller at the potions apothecary – I was no good anyways – and now the Quibbler's hired me for a few galleons an article. I'm here to write about you, Harry, and boy, there's a lot to write about."

"You're basically a hack writer, then?" I asked him, and at his confused expression explained, "Hack writers get paid by quantity not quality. I watched a documentary about the early beginnings of the publishing industry in the muggle world once," I told him, "Its not something to be proud of actually."

Collin laughed and said, "Sounds about right, but I enjoy my work and most of the time I get my free reign on things. Get to take brilliant photos too." He had brought his camera with him and asked me for a few shots. We took one of him and me side by side with a large fish hanging between us as if we were fishing buddies, and one of me holding aloft my wand like a sword, and one of me flying on the firebolt across the lake. I reviewed the pictures and asked him to omit one of them where I had my wand pointed backwards.

When we came back for hot chocolate, we continued the interview, if one could call it that. It was informal, the way two old friends would reacquaint with each other. I felt at ease.

Then he popped the big question: "How did it all happen, Harry? I guess that's what everyone's most interested in, how did you defeat the Dark Lord?"

I expected this and answered readily, "Well, first of all, Collin, and I say this not only to you buy everyone out there so better put this part in, call him by his name, Voldemort, and not some gibberish like the Dark Lord or You Know Who. Voldemort is as mortal as any man, and though highly skilled in magic, he is not some infallible god like being." I chuckled, "I've perhaps come to know Voldemort as a person, and few can say to know him better than I because we share a connection. Shared I mean." I pointed to my scar.

"What sort of connection is this?" Collin asked, "Can you read his mind?"

"No, but he could read mine," I told him, "He could plant dreams in my head, and I had to work hard every single day to separate myself from what he put to confuse me with. It's a tough discipline but in the end I think it helped me, matured me."

"Helped you in what way?"

"Well, I guess the constant mental warfare with Voldemort crystallized my own identity, my inner being and helped me know who I am and who I'm not. I'm one of the good guys," I said. "I know that for sure."

"So last night, when the death eaters suffered cardiac events and passed away suddenly, what happened?"

"I took a walk in the Forbidden Forest," I began, "Got kidnapped by centaurs who wanted to trade their future well being for me. Voldemort came, scattered them, we dueled, end of story."

"Must have been quite an adventure," Collin said. I nodded.

"Indeed it has Collin," I said, "My whole life has been an adventure and that tale has ended. Voldemort's gone. The Boy Who Lived prevailed," I said, the corners of my lips curling into a smirk. "I guess you can say, the Boy Who Lived, lived to win after all."

Collin put that as the final sentence in the article he wrote. It was a big hit.

"Can you tell us more about your experience last night, in defeating Voldemort?" He didn't stutter the name. I was proud of him for that.

"Um," I said, and thought up a brilliant plan. "I can't, because I'm actually going to write an autobiography."

Collin's eyes widened, "Really? Why I never would have thought," he said, "I wanted to write a bio on you myself but I hadn't had the time yet. I guess we'll find a lot of things we don't know about you, huh?"

I nodded, "Damn straight," I said, "But the work will take a while so I won't be answering any questions during the writing period. It will all be answered in my book."

"Have you thought up a title?"

My mind raced, "Yes I have, I'll call it the Harry Potter Adventure," I said. "It will be quite long, too, so the work will take me many months."

We shook hands a few minutes later.

I packed my bags and took the ferry to Hogsmaede, where I disembarked with a single brown sack as my only piece of luggage – I had shrunk my stuff for convenience. I expected Becky to be waiting for me at the harbor dock and I wasn't disappointed. She wore a summer yellow dress, her black hair fluttered gently with the wind, and her hands were folded above her breast. She didn't seem too happy.

I went up to her, kissed her on the lips and said, "So?"

"So. Had fun at the Castle?" Her eyes were hard.

"Come on, lets go home," I took her hand and led her to my apartment building in Hogsmaede. It was a three bedroom structure with a good eye on the furniture, which Becky had picked for me. We made ourselves comfortable on the balcony, a beer in our hands. I drank hurriedly and relaxed right away, feeling my strained muscles melt into puddles of happiness. Flying excessively over the last few days had turned my back muscles to jello. The soreness left after I downed three or four beers. As we drank, I talked to Becky about all and everything except the Night. She knew I didn't want to talk about it and left it alone. She listened to me quietly and said, "Do you want to go to bed?"

I nodded. I undressed her on the balcony, slowly, pausing to give her tiny kisses on her jaw line as I nuzzled her breasts with the palms of my hand. Her skin was soft and creamy and she smelled like flowers. The soap was new, as was the shampoo. Her hair smelled like fresh green grass and other fresh green things that reminded me of a blooming nature park.

She was a delightful screamer in bed. I rode her until we were both tired and sweaty. We got some dinner from the fridge, heated it with a few house charms and ate in silence. Then she said, "I can't do this anymore."

"I know," I said, "I know. I could tell."

"It's not you, it's me."

"No, no it's not." I shook my head. "I know you Becky, and you know I know you."

We passed the night in silence. She left in the morning, bags packed.

I knew this would happen. Becky was a free woman, and didn't like being chained by the press any more than I did. She already got all the attention she could handle as the Minister's daughter. She didn't need anymore as the Boy Who Lived's girlfriend, especially with my recent spike in popularity. She could barely leave the apartment without being mobbed by reporters and media figures. I knew her troubles, had lived through them and could empathize. I gave her a peck on the cheek and told her not to be a stranger but I wasn't surprised when she never wrote to me again. I informed a reporter a few days later we had broken up and the details would be in my autobiography.

I spent the next month preparing lesson plans for the kids I would be teaching. I spent a lot of the time roaming the muggle world, playing tennis with doctors and lawyers, meeting hot six foot blonde tango dancers and spending all the cash I had left in my Gringotts vault buying several real estate properties. I hoped for a rise in the market prices the coming year or I would be out a severe penny. I rented the estates out for cheap and made a decent income, had my muggle lawyer run the business aspect for me for a cut.

Over wine, late at night, I would work on the autobiography. I started with the cupboard.

_The thing I remember most about my early childhood is the dark and empty corner my relatives gave me for a bedroom. The tiny cupboard in the stairs, despite its modesty and humble setting, was cozy and felt safe to me. I could go into the cupboard, sit for hours on the tiny cot, stare at the cobwebs from the light leaking under the door and imagine myself… flying on a motorcycle or eating ice cream on the Leaning Tower of Pisa, or scaling the Pyramids in mountain gear, or swimming across the ocean to undiscovered lands. I was king in the cupboard, and I let my imagination roam wild and free. My Uncle said I had an abnormal imagination, very unhealthy. I disagreed in silence lest I be punished by being denied a meal. _

_My childhood was a happy one. I was never spoiled, but never truly hurt either. My magic protected me in the most fundamental ways – a broken arm would heal within a few hours, cuts and scratches disappeared very quickly, and my hair always remained messy despite Aunt Petunia's best attempts to cut it down to stubs. I remember running from Dudley, who chased me with his gang of bullies, and ending up on the roof top of the school building. Although I had no friends and couldn't count on my relatives I felt my separation from society a tangible thing, the dividing line being my strange incidents which I would keep very close to my heart. _

_Hogwarts changed everything for me. I met people I truly liked – Hagrid, Ron, Hermione, and I grew up in every way that mattered. I was no longer a loner, though that part still exists deep inside me, but I still cowered away from my new found fame. The disparity between my poor beginnings and the great attention thrust upon me by the wizarding world confused me. I never asked anyone's advice how to deal with this, with life. I just carried on the best I could, living each day one at a time. _

A letter came from Dumbledore requesting me to take the train to Hogwarts, escort the students the way Professor Lupin had done in my third year. He said there were still people who supported the dark lord and hadn't taken the mark, who wanted to play a greater role in the hoodlum of politics by means of force. Dumbledore heard rumors of a possible plot to kidnap youngsters and ransom them for hoards of galleons. I was to protect them.

I thought Dumbledore placed too great a trust in my abilities. Nevertheless I arrived at platform nine and three quarters a few hours early and made my way on the train picking a compartment in the back where I was sure I wouldn't be readily disturbed. I opened my textbook, the required reading for the course I would teach that year and began to read it for the hundredth time: An Auror's Manual of Life on the Force.

The book had three components, dueling, living off the land, and the art of negotiation. I figured the first and the last section was truly important and decided to teach each class according to the level of difficulty they could handle. The first years would learn basic dodging skills along with a few hexes and charms, and the seventh years would learn how to duel by dueling me. Everyone, including me, would learn how to negotiate their way out of dangerous situations.

My lesson plans were loose and flexible. I hadn't smoked a lot of weed the past month but when I did I came up with some great ideas for interesting lessons, which I hastily scribed on a notepad the size of my hand. I flipped through my book of ideas and stopped at a page with a single phrase on it scrawled messily in black ink: _Camping in the Forbidden Forest = Final Exam _

I thought of Voldemort's final resting place, and ripped the page out of the spiral ring of the notebook and threw it out the window. A knock on the carriage door informed me visitors were here. I opened the sliding door and met the gaze of surprised third years. Beckoning them in I shut the door. There were four of them, two boys, and two girls. They stared at my scar.

As Lupin had done I did not pretend to sleep, but talked to the children, coaxing their stories out of them. Max was a muggle born son of a cobbler, Lisa was the daughter of a halfblood bookshop owner, Alfred was the son of a pureblood businessman and Jacy was the daughter of a chemist.

We played a game of chess. The train passed by the mountains and a forest and a stream gushing with water, its scent faint on the breeze blowing through the open window. I was soundly defeated by the foursome who had teamed up against me. We laughed and joked and they asked me if I was really going to teach them, and what. "Defense against the dark arts," I proudly replied, "Lisa and Alfred would probably have heard of me, and of the use of such skills."

"It's the dark lord," Alfred explained, "He scared the crap out of us for decades, killing and stuff. Harry Potter here stopped him."

"Did you murder him? The Dark Lord." Max looked at me skeptically.

"Ahem," I cleared my throat, "How about some chocolate frogs?"


End file.
